Leaders in early childhood education are continuing efforts to find new ways to support Lincoln’s child care industry — and community partnerships and advocacy will likely play a big role in their work, they say.
Dozens of providers, public school leaders, elected officials and advocates gathered in Lincoln on Wednesday morning at Lincoln Littles’ third annual Early Childhood Summit, where they discussed the state of child care in the Capital City.
While the child care crisis in Lincoln is seemingly easing up, officials said there’s still work to be done to ensure the city’s youngest learners are receiving the best care possible, and no single organization can tackle the issue on its own.
Groups like Lincoln Littles, a nonprofit focused on the betterment of early childhood education, must join together to share resources, brainstorm ideas and create a unified front in support of the industry, according to Tracy Edgerton, president of the Lincoln Community Foundation.
“It really takes all of us fitting together with care and purpose to give every child the strong, strong start they deserve,” she said.
Child care is a “complicated puzzle,” according to Anne Brandt, executive director of Lincoln Littles. A lot of pieces need to be considered when looking at the industry, including federal funding, tuition prices, quality providers, staff training, salaries, business costs and changing center needs.
Lincoln Littles tries to touch every area of need through their work.
In 2024, Lincoln Littles distributed more than $541,800 in tuition assistance, allowing nearly 300 children to access child care in Lincoln, according to the organization’s annual report unveiled at Wednesday’s summit.
The nonprofit also hosted monthly support meetings for local providers throughout the year, averaging about 50 attendees each week, and provided 210 hours of technical assistance to child care employees throughout the year.
Further, Lincoln Littles offered a program to train those working in or interested in joining Lincoln’s child care industry, reaching over 60 participants.
Lincoln Littles also provided 17 quality improvement grants totaling $58,730 to help child care providers across the city make improvements they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford, like fresh coats of paint, supplies, classroom furniture and new toys.
The organization has formed countless connections with fellow nonprofits, child care providers and community leaders to advance their work.
A new program at Lincoln Literacy that aims to help immigrants and refugees become trained child care providers, teachers and paras is one example of Lincoln Littles banding together with other organizations.
The program works alongside Lincoln Littles, local child care centers and the American Job Center, which provides internship scholarships to help centers afford to hire program graduates.
For Zainab Khudhair, a 22-year-old child care provider at Hamilton Heights Child Development Center, the Lincoln Literacy teacher training program was life-changing.
When Khudhair immigrated to Nebraska from Iraq about a year ago, she turned to Lincoln Literacy for help improving her English skills, where she was also introduced to the program. After completing her classes, she began work at the south Lincoln child care center.
“It makes me happy every day, makes me smile every morning,” she said.
Advocates also urged participants on Wednesday to use their voices in support of a bill (LB304), which they hope to bring back in front of the Nebraska Legislature this year after the measure died in committee last session.
The bill would make the current income eligibility requirements for child care subsidies permanent, ensuring thousands of families across the state do not lose their child care assistance when the program is slated to sunset in October 2026.
If it is not extended, the family income cap to receive assistance drops from $59,000 a year to $42,000. The average annual cost of child care in Lincoln is about $9,700 — nearly the same price of in-state tuition at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said Amanda Barker, director of community engagement and partnerships at the Lincoln Community Foundation.
“If it’s not permanent, what we’ll see is about 2,500 families lose that subsidy and struggle to access care. It will affect those families. It will affect those providers that are receiving those dollars. And it will be a tough hit for a lot of communities and families in Nebraska,” she said.
While programs such as the one at Lincoln Literacy and legislation like LB304 can make a dent, there’s one thing Brandt said they need in order to truly make a long-lasting, wide-ranging impact on child care in Lincoln and across Nebraska: ample, systemic state or federal funding.
“Child care won’t truly be more accessible or affordable unless we change the way it’s funded and improve policies that challenge providers,” she said.
But to achieve universal funding, Lincoln needs the unwavering support of community members, regardless of whether or not they have young children in child care or are retired and don’t have any personal connection to the industry, said Dylan Wren, a workforce administrator at American Job Center who spoke at the event as a panelist.
“It is everybody’s responsibility, I think, to help make this better,” he said. “Whatever your position is, I think there’s something that we can all do to contribute, because alone, we’re not going to solve anything.”
Reach Jenna Ebbers at 402-473-2657 or jebbers@journalstar.com.
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Jenna Ebbers
K-12 education reporter
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